The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

I need to be reminded that things change right about now. As February shivers on, and the temperature hovers around 0 degrees Fahrenheit, and the ice-crusted snow remains up to the top of my thighs…well, you get the picture. I am oh-so-stiff from the cold, and also from the static landscape that surrounds me.

(And I am only talking about external factors here. I could go on and on about the internal ones too. But I won’t!)

My friend, Lisa, gave me the reminder I needed though. After cross-country skiing around the field at the end of our road, we stood for a moment, the wind whipping across our faces, freezing our foreheads, practically penetrating our brains. We looked back at the field. I complained about the dizzying sameness of it all. But Lisa reminded me that underneath all that snow is a corn field. So in the spring it will be planted. And then the corn will grow. And summer will come. And then the corn will be harvested. And fall will arrive. And then the field will be plowed and tilled in anticipation of the next growing season. And all the while I will ski, then run, then ski again around its vast perimeter.

So the external landscape stays the same, yes. But it also changes. And it does these things in a fluid and organic way. Those two truths provide a sense of safety and a sense of hope. I am reminded of one of my new favorite books Tall Story by Candy Gourlay. A boy travels from the Philippines to England to be with his family. In his case, it is his internal landscape that both changes and stays the same.

How do I achieve the same inside of myself?

Tam Smith

Snow Mandala

Man, it has been windy around here lately! Cold gusts sneak attacking from the side, slapping an icy palm across one ear. Ooooh! Wakes me up in the morning, that’s for sure…

…and I would be a little frustrated with the wind, and just a little tired of my one frozen ear (and frozen toes and fingers to go along with it) if it weren’t for my cross country skis, the field past my house and Tibetan Healing Mandalas.

Huh?

I have been cross country skiing for the last few weeks in this incredible field past the farm on my dead-end street. It is adjacent to the cow field on one side, and borders the river on another. It is huge and open and covered in snow. The first time I went skiing, the field was smooth and sparkling. No tracks had been laid, and I trudged through shin-deep snow to lay the first ones down. I was psyched. And I knew that the next time I went out I would have a track to follow. It is much easier to ski in an already-made track! But the next time? No track. None. The wind had swept it away. So I rolled up my sleeves (not really though, or I would have had frozen elbows along with my frozen ear, toes and fingers) and I made another track. But the next time I went out…

You get the picture. It was gone. Evaporated. Wind-swept.

As I said, at that point I would have been a little frustrated. Except that the image of a Tibetan Healing Mandala crept into my mind. Those breath-taking balanced and geometric creations constructed from millions of grains of sand by Tibetan monks. These mandalas are believed to effect purification and healing, and their healing powers are supposed to extend to the whole world, which is then symbolized in the final act of sweeping them up and dispersing them into flowing water.

(A little like the purifying baptism of Zachary Beaver in Kimberly Willis Holt’s When Zachary Beaver Came to Town…not Buddhism, but truly the whole town seems to be healed in the process…)

Anyway, as I took a deep breath and began my journey around the field for a third time the cows wandered over to see what I was doing, and the river crackled as its layers of ice shifted and broke and its cold water flowed. The image of the mandala had trekked to my feet. I was making my own balanced and healing creation—right in the field past my house.

Tam